South Carolina: Nikki Haley loves Joan Jett.

On the campaign trail against Donald Trump, she often cites her adoration for the trailblazing musician, whose classic hit I Love Rock ’N Roll can usually be heard blasting from the speakers of a Haley rally before she hits the stage.

Jett was “one of the first true rockers”, the Republican presidential hopeful says, but she was constantly rejected by record label executives who “didn’t like the way she looked, didn’t like the way she acted, and didn’t look at the talent”.

“But she never gave up,” Haley told the audience a recent town hall event.

“What a lesson that is, right? People will discount you all of your life. But the fact that she persisted, the fact that she continued to go forward, and the fact that she was just a badass – I love every bit of that.”

Decades after Jett’s uphill battle with the titans of the US music industry, Haley is facing what she describes as “a David & Goliath” contest of her own.

This weekend, the former UN ambassador goes head-to-head against Trump in her home state’s primary election in South Carolina, but trails the former president by about 30 percentage points, according to most polls.

A hometown defeat would be humiliating for Haley, who grew up in the South Carolina city of Bamberg as “the proud daughter of Indian immigrants”, began her political career in the state legislature and later became a two-term governor.

Yet, despite Haley running an impressive campaign – even outdoing Trump in donations last month – most political observers believe she is on track for a drubbing, which would add to her losses in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.

What’s more, many can’t name another state where she will beat Trump and secure enough delegates to win the nomination to run against President Joe Biden in November.

So, is this Haley’s last stand?

“I think, from her perspective, if she doesn’t get a lot closer in South Carolina or on some of the Super Tuesday races [in March] – and I don’t see that happening – I think she will clearly recognise there’s really no chance to win,” says Danielle Vinson, a professor of politics and international affairs at South Carolina’s Furman University.

“And the only reason for her to stay in it, at that point, is to try to convey to the party that if, for some reason, Trump has to be removed as the nominee before November comes around, that she would be a good option for them.”

However, for now, Haley insists she is “not going anywhere”. Indeed, this week, just as the Trump campaign put out a memo titled “The End Is Near for Nikki Haley” and called on her to quit, she summoned the national press to an event at Greenville and spent an entire speech explaining why she wasn’t backing down.

“Some of you – perhaps a few of you in the media – came here today to see if I’m dropping out of the race,” she said with a slight smile. “Well, I’m not. Far from it.”

Her reasons vary. Most voters do not want a rematch between Trump and Biden and, said Haley, they deserve a better choice than “two old men who are only getting older”.

Also, there are still many primaries to go, and quitting this early would consign the country to “a bad case of Biden-Trump fatigue”, and a chaotic future regardless of who won, she said.

As for Trump’s iron grip on the party? Some Republicans had given into the “herd mentality”, Haley said, but she would not.

“I feel no need to kiss the ring,” she said. “I have no fear of Trump’s retribution. I’m not looking for anything from him.”

It was a forceful rebuke from a woman who started her presidential campaign just like most of Trump’s other challengers: taking tepid jabs at the former president for fear of alienating his base.

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But those who know Haley say she doesn’t mind a fight, pointing to the time she beat an almost 30-year incumbent to the South Carolina state house and later knocked out a string of male political heavyweights to become the state’s first female governor in 2010.

Now, with little to lose against Trump’s momentum, the gloves are off.

On the campaign trail this week, the 52-year-old Republican pushed a new slogan – “Make America Normal Again” – in a nod to the “chaos” she says surrounds the former president. She highlighted his string of court cases, and the money he has spent funding them. And at a recent rally, her staffers even handed out mental competency tests – something she says every presidential candidate over the age of 75 should take. That would include Trump, who is 77, and Biden, who is 81.

“We’ve all seen them fumble their words and get confused about world leaders. That’s not who you want in the Oval Office when Russia launches a nuclear weapon at our satellites, or China shuts down our electricity grid,” she said. “We’re talking about the most demanding job in human history. You don’t give it to someone who’s at risk of dementia.”

Not surprisingly, Trump has also escalated his attacks. Having spent the past few months calling his former UN ambassador “birdbrain” and spreading conspiracy theories about her heritage, Trump this month questioned why Haley’s husband Michael, who is currently deployed in Africa with the South Carolina Army National Guard, wasn’t by her side.

In a country where military members are generally met with universal gratitude, Haley and her supporters were furious. On social media, the hashtag #WheresMelania also started trending – a reference to Trump’s wife, who has been noticeably absent ever since he left office.

“A president that can’t honour its fallen and those that have served our country is someone who should not be president of the US,” said retired brigadier general Don Bolduc, a friend of Haley who ran as a Republican candidate for Congress in 2022.

But while the Trump campaign insists Haley has no path to victory, others hope there are enough anti-Trump voters to help her narrow the margin and thwart his momentum as they head towards Super Tuesday, which takes place on March 5 when about 16 states and territories hold their primaries and a third of all Republican delegates will be at stake.

South Carolina also has an “open primary” system, which means that any registered voter, regardless of party affiliation, can vote in this contest – as long as they did not cast a vote in the state’s Democratic primary earlier this month.

Among them is Chris Richardson, a former diplomat and traditional Democrat supporter who is planning to vote for Haley in a bid to thwart the former president’s potential comeback.

Richardson argues that “in normal political times” this would never happen – citing Haley’s refusal to expand Medicaid when she was governor and her confusion over slavery as the cause of the Civil War as reasons that he would not ordinarily vote for her.

But these are not ordinary political times, he tells this masthead, and a “second term Trump” would be more emboldened than ever. The former president has already promised to sack federal employees and embark on a mass deportation of migrants who cross the US-Mexico border.

But Richardson questions what would happen if Trump won this year’s election, and refused to transfer power at the next election?

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“It really boils down to: what does our country look like in 2028?” he tells this masthead. “And I fear that the elections as we know them may not be possible if Donald Trump gets a second term.”

In many ways, Richardson is emblematic of the broad coalition that Haley is hoping to attract to stay in the race. She’s also attracting thousands of donors to pay for much-needed advertising and campaign costs, raising $US16.5 million ($25.1 million) in January alone - including from some donors who previously contributed to Biden’s 2020 campaign.

Her most potent pitch to Republicans, meanwhile, is that Trump has a history of losing – at the 2020 presidential election, and at the midterm elections in 2018 and 2022 – and “we can’t change this country if we don’t win”.

And while she acknowledges she faces an uphill battle, she’s used to being the underdog.

“I’ve always been David taking on Goliath,” she said this week. “And like David, I’m not just fighting someone bigger than me. I’m fighting for something bigger than myself.”

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